The things we pretend didn't happen
by gubbochrubs
Summary: MAGGIE X DARYL. Maggie is happy with Glenn, but that doesn't mean she's forgotten what happened before. Not completely, anyway.


She awoke, as always, to the feel of Glenn's arms around her, his breathing deep and restful against the nape of her neck. She lay there for a few minutes, not moving, just staring at the other end of the watchtower, the wind making a soft howling noise as it blew through the glass ventilation shafts at the top.

He didn't wake when she extricated herself from his embrace, merely shifting a little and tucking himself even further into the makeshift sheets. She had woken up much earlier than usual. The air was crisp, and through the windows she could see the walkers beyond the fence, mostly less agitated now because of the cold, now shambling listlessly a distance away. _Thank bloody God._

Giving Glenn a kiss on his temple, she opened the trapdoor and slid onto the ladder below, climbing carefully down. She could use a walk. As cosy as the watchtower got, the air got stale after a while. Her boots crunched on the gravel as she hit the bottom. Walking toward the gate, she did the usual rounds – checking on the locks and ropes, giving the wooden plints holding up the fence a good kick to test them for sturdiness, inspecting the fence for breaches. As always, her presence immediately attracted the attention of the walkers, who started to press against the fences again.

There was a time where she would have regarded the walkers with disgust. Rotting, peeling skin, open wounds that were rank with the smell of decay and infection, the stuff of nightmares. But that time had come and gone a long time ago. Now, she didn't feel a thing as she picked up one of the steel rods leaning against the gate, sharpened with a whetting stone by Carol, and proceeded to stab them in their skulls through the fence. Every walker killed was another one they didn't need to fight should the fence ever go down. She had suggested pouring kerosene on them over the fence and setting them on fire, but it was the height of summer and the grass around them was dry and arid. No point killing a hundred walkers at the cost of burning up the whole prison.

She was so intent on puncturing their skulls that she didn't hear him approach until he wished her good morning, in that drawl of his.

He looked like he always did, with the crossbow slung over his right shoulder.

"Morning," she said, and turned back.

"Less of them today."

"Rick set more bait yesterday evening."

There was a silence, and for a while she thought he had walked back. But then he tossed the crossbow to the ground, before picking up another rod and coming up beside her to help out. They worked in silence for a few minutes – or what passed for silence, anyway, when there were forty odd walkers snarling and groaning as they reached for them.

"Why are you up so early?" She finally said, putting down the rod and wiping the sweat from her brow.

"We're goin' out on a run."

"Another one? So fast?"

He shrugged, before expertly stabbing another walker through its eye socket. "We need more medical supplies. Your daddy's orders." The now-corpse crumbled to the grass, arms still feebly clutching at the metal grille.

"Who's going?"

"Rick, Ty, and Ninja lady." Maggie couldn't help a snort of amusement at his nickname for Michonne. "What about you? This your version of mornin' exercise now?" He stopped for a moment too, and she could feel those green eyes of his on her, although she didn't turn to look at him.

"Couldn't sleep."

"Why, sugar," he said, and she could hear it in his voice that he was going to tease her. "Glenn not servicing you right?" There were moments like these, she thought, when she was reminded that he and Merle were related.

She rolled her eyes and tossed him a look that was an equivalent of a _fuck you_. Just as she was about to respond, someone yelled for Daryl in the distance.

"Gotta go," Daryl said, stabbing one more walker in the cranium before leaning the rod against the pillar. "You need anythin'?"

She shook her head. He walked away, and this time, she couldn't help it, turning, shielding her eyes from the morning sun, watching him walk back towards cell block C.

She had cast it out of her mind, mostly, anyway. But when they were alone – which hardly ever happened nowadays – it came back to her, full force. The way he just stood there, his bare arms, they brought back memories.

Daryl and her had fucked, all those months ago when he and his band of merry troopers had first descended on the Hershel farm. Way before Glenn, of course. It had just been harmless flirting at first, her sharpening knives while he created makeshift arrows out of freshly chopped birch – his crass, lazy, filthy language intrusive, inappropriate... and effective. They had done it in the barn, when it was his turn to keep watch. It had been physical attraction, pure and simple. He had fucked her with so much power, his arms pinning hers over her head, that when she came he had to fuck her mouth with his tongue too, trapping her whimpers in the recesses of his own before she woke up everybody else. He wasn't her first, of course, but she had never felt such a deep physical attraction for anybody, ever, never so much danger, so much loss of control.

That was all over, of course. They had moved out from the farm, all that shit had gone down with Merle, they had travelled in different groups, and of course, Glenn happened. She was happy with Glenn. Glenn was her soulmate – he cared for her, he loved her, and whenever she was with him, no matter how fucked up the world got, no matter how many walkers broke through the gates, she felt like she was safe. They had slept together countless times now, and in Glenn's arms was home. She was safe there. She loved him – she'd rather throw herself into a sea of walkers than see him die.

It was funny then, how something that was so over, still caused her to feel something. She could chalk it up to physical attraction, she supposed – the memories of his skin on her, the drawl of his voice in her ear as he sucked on her earlobe, the friction of his sculpted waist against her own soft stomach– she couldn't make any of that go away. It was just a goddamned one night stand, all those months ago, but she could remember it as if it were yesterday, and remembering it made her hot in all kinds of ways that she shouldn't be.

When she reached the top of the watchtower, Glenn was awake, packing up the sleeping bags.

"Why didn't you wake me?" He asked, but his tone was light.

Maggie responded with a kiss, pressing the length of her body against his.

It would kill him to know, and because of that, he would never know.


End file.
